


There are no eyes here (in this valley of dying stars)

by blueberrywizard, heismysoulmate



Series: Heaven and Hell mean nothing to me [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Armageddon happened, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for God, M/M, T.S. Eliot references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 17:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19361218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberrywizard/pseuds/blueberrywizard, https://archiveofourown.org/users/heismysoulmate/pseuds/heismysoulmate
Summary: The world was ending with a bang, a whimper, a thunder, a groan, a wheeze, a whine, a cry and a scream. Bones grinding, metal crunching, high howl of dying demon, accompanied by the screech of an angel burning in hellfire made Crowley feel sick. The world was absorbed in chaos and everything was in flames.It was the forty fourth day of the war.





	There are no eyes here (in this valley of dying stars)

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [There are no eyes here (in this valley of dying stars)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19242586) by [blueberrywizard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberrywizard/pseuds/blueberrywizard). 



> I'm back with my bullshit. It took me a while to translate that (with a little help from amazing @heismysoulmate), because I'm kinda proud of this fic. I hope you'll like it!
> 
> (English is not our first language so please, if you see any errors let us - kindly - know and we'll try to fix it)
> 
> Title taken from "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot

 

 

 

> Life is very long  
>    
>  Between the desire  
>  And the spasm  
>  Between the potency  
>  And the existence  
>  Between the essence  
>  And the descent  
>  Falls the Shadow  
>    
>  For Thine is the Kingdom  
>    
>  For Thine is  
>  Life is  
>  For Thine is the  
>    
>  This is the way the world ends  
>  This is the way the world ends  
>  This is the way the world ends  
>  Not with a bang but with a whimper.
> 
>   
>  Thomas Stearns Eliot, _The Hollow Men_

 

 

_Not with a bang but with a whimper._

_Not with a bang but with a whimper._

_Not with a bang but with a whimper._

 

Oh, if Eliot only knew how wrong he was. The world was ending with a bang, a whimper, a thunder, a groan, a wheeze, a whine, a cry and a scream. Bones grinding, metal crunching, high howl of dying demon, accompanied by the screech of an angel burning in hellfire made Crowley feel sick. The world was absorbed in chaos and everything was in flames.

 

It was the forty fourth day of the war.

 

Forty fourth day of the life he hated. Forty fourth day filled with fear for his life and panic that at any time he might see familiar shape in a pile of bodies or hear his scream among other inhuman sounds.

 

He wanted to say he would create Hell on Earth if it came to that, but he would be a month and a half too late.

 

Crowley didn’t really know how it happened. At one moment everything seemed to be just fine, everyone prepared to go their way and take care of their own business, and then the real slaughter begun. It was something the demon wouldn’t even dream of. In the chaos that began then, he wasn’t able to catch Aziraphale’s hand and run away somewhere where the war’s blaze wouldn’t be able to reach them. They both got absorbed by the two sides for which they were still working and had to obey, even if they both knew that they’re truly loyal only to each other. None of them mentioned it, but they both knew that they could run to extremes only for each other.

 

Not that it mattered in that moment.

 

The war was continuing for the forty fourth day and none of the sides was closer to the victory. Instead of that Heaven and Hell made themselves a playground on Earth, and not caring about a single thing, they were slaughtering one another. Crowley knew that there never gonna be a winner. They were too close, too similar in their methods and passions to see it. That’s why Crowley never wanted to pick a side. And he knew that Aziraphale thought that too.

 

Now it was too late anyway.

 

Crowley was avoiding the front however he could, but finally the front came to him. He was thinking about the irony that made him stand again in the horrible cold, in the place that was once called Verdun, and now was unnamed, because why name something that was just a one big battlefield? He couldn’t understand what was in that place that every few hundred years the hell of war was accumulating on those several square miles. He doubted that it was caused by the War’s taste in crêpes, but he could be wrong. The Horsemen also had to have their small weaknesses, right?

 

There’s a cold, east wind coming, just like in February 1916 and Crowley put up a collar of his heavy, military-like black coat, trying to hide a bit from it. He had this vague feeling that everything’s going to end right here. He just didn’t know how.

 

His boots were ankle deep in the mud when he was striding through the field with hands in his pockets. He had with him some improved to the needs of war weapons, but Heaven and Hell were apparently agreeing when it came to choosing arms. It made Crowley, who has been wearing kevlar vest, coat and his integral sunglasses, feel a little underdressed (he never liked armours anyway, so he had no intentions to wear them again and even the end of the world couldn’t make him do it).  

 

“CROWLEY.”

 

_Bloody hell._

 

“Yes?” He mumbled, knowing that higher powers (lower? how the hell one can neutrally describe a satanic lord and master while being a bit respectful or at least pretending to be?) would hear him anyway.

 

“CROWLEY, THE TIME HAS COME FOR YOU TO TAKE PART IN OUR VICTORY.”

 

“Mmm. Oh, and what… What exactly I’m supposed to do?” _Nothing would be the best, I wouldn’t feel sorry for that._

 

“HE IS ALREADY COMING, AND WHEN YOU DEFEAT HIM, VICTORY WILL BE OURS. KILL HIM, AND AND WE WILL BE CELEBRATING BEFORE DAWN.”

 

Well, that were very specific informations. Crowley didn’t even try to ask any questions, because he knew he wouldn’t get any answers.

 

So everything is going to end in Verdun. He regretted he couldn’t go and grab the last crêpes in his life. Aziraphale was right - crêpes made in France were like nowhere else.

 

Funny, the last time he was here, he had been watching for both sides not to get any significant advantage. He was counting on them giving up on this nonsense, but he didn’t took into consideration how bloodthirsty the humanity was. He was having a déjà vu, at the same time being painfully aware, that this time there’s not gonna be anyone ensuring the status quo. He could only count on himself.

 

The question was: _who is this whole “he”?_

 

Crowley didn’t want to fight. And he didn’t want to kill. He had enough of the Apocalypse, enough that he didn’t know where the Aziraphale is, where his plants are, or where is any meaning of the existence? Only crash and noise, pain and death, burning flames and muddy holy ground.

 

_You started it, Crowley. It’s only logical that you have to end this._

 

And dear God (Crowley didn’t even care who’s name he was calling in despair, nothing made sense anyway, Nietzsche might as well have been right and God really is dead. Otherwise why would They plan it? And Aziraphale had so much _faith_ in this big, ineffable plan, why _why?_ ) he didn’t ask for that. He didn’t want to take anyone’s side, he wanted to have his own, so everyone would leave him alone. Were his sins really that big, does God really hate him that much, that They allocated him to exactly this role?

 

_If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds._

 

Crowley had just become the destroyer of one world and it was enough.

 

And indeed, the sky opened and was as radiant as if a thousand suns were to burst at once. Crowley moved away his eyes, unable to keep looking at light. Before afterimages had disappeared, he thought that a figure, which came out of the column of the light, was only one of the many colourful spots under his eyelids, but after a while he realised that someone was approaching him. 

 

The first thing he had seen was a beautiful, ornamented with gold, snow-white breastplate. Golden stripes, coinciding to the middle, were making the figure look more slender and light in a way that no armour wearing person should be. Then he saw that the armour wasn’t exactly complete. It looked like an angel, who was wearing it, was dressing himself in a hurry - he hadn’t got a helmet or any piece below a rerebrace, and below waist he had solid looking white trousers, which didn’t guarantee any real protection to anyone who was  wearing them. At the end he noticed two things: that angel in his right hand was holding a long, flaming sword, which no living creature could touch and live, and that he knows this messy blond locks. They were longer than he was used to during last six thousand years, but they had the same softness in them that was making Crowley want to comb through them with his hands. 

 

Real angel of anger. Crowley had heard some rumours of his existence, but nobody ever saw him. Nevertheless, he instinctively knew that in front of him stood the closest version of him that could ever exist. The betrayed, forgotten, bleeding angel, who wanted to retrieve what he once lost.

 

_Peace and love._

 

“Aziraphale,” he whispered quieter than a wind. But Aziraphale heard him, and lowered his sword, not relaxing his stance. Crowley knew when he had in front of him a person ready to attack.

 

“Crowley.” 

 

It seemed like neither of them wanted to speak up first. Crowley used that time to look closer at the angel. War didn’t do any good to anybody in the first place, but it took its toll on him exceptionally hard - he lost this softness Crowley had always loved, both in his figure and his face. He felt uneasy looking at sharp cheekbones and a jaw, just as if he was a poorly made jigsaw puzzle; in a way everything fits, but there was a wrong picture.

 

Crowley cleared his throat. 

 

“I assume your orders are the same as mine.”

 

Aziraphale nodded. His eyes were cold as ice - they had never looked like that, even when Crowley put them in total _clusterfuck_ the crusades were. They were always warm, warm like in no other angel’s, especially for Crowley.

 

“Let’s end this.” That’s all what Aziraphale had to say, before he had taken the battle stance. Crowley put his sunglasses away, just to look at his angel for the last time.

 

If there was any love left on this world, Crowley was full of it, and even the Apocalypse couldn’t take it away from him.

 

“I’m not gonna fight you. You’re my best friend.”

 

He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see the flaming sword getting closer to his head.

 

* * *

 

  


Rapid inhale of air had been burning Crowley’s lungs. Some voice at the back of his head (which sounded very similar to Aziraphale’s) told him that he should try to get deeper breaths and make longer breaks between them, but his body wouldn’t listen. He got the feeling as if he was floating above the bed, drowning in vastness without anything to anchor him in the reality.

 

“Crowley, love, it was only a dream. You’re safe.”

 

Crowley moved his head towards the calm, gentle voice so fast, he had almost snapped his neck. Aziraphale put one hand on his chest, another one in his hair, and his gaze was warm and full of love. He wore white pyjamas, on which Crowley had insisted to wear, even if he planned on reading a book the whole night, because _I don’t need sleep, and frankly, I don’t understand what’s so pleasant about it, Crowley._

 

“The Apo… The Apocalypse?” He rasped between one inhale and another.

 

“We had avoided it. There was no war, we dispersed in peace, everything came out just fine.” Aziraphale explained in calm, steady voice. “Adam calls once in a while, you talked to him last week, and he hadn’t changed his mind. He loves Earth just like we do. We’re in Soho and we’re safe.”

 

“Okay. Okay. _Okay._ ”

 

Crowley moved his hand across face. He was so _tired_ that if it wasn’t for Aziraphale, he would try his best at beating his record of the longest nap ever. The _eternity_ sounded like perfect amount of time to sleep, but it would be the _eternity_ without Aziraphale and that was absolutely unacceptable. Silently, he collapsed into angel’s arms, letting him cover them with a warm blanket. When he was finally laying comfortable, he asked:

 

“What are you reading?”

 

“Oh, nothing, really. I just thought that I need to become acquainted with books which Adam had gifted to me. If I didn’t do that, it would be extremely ungrateful and impolite. 

 

Crowley mumbled something approvingly. 

 

“Can you read something to me maybe? Out loud?”

 

“Of course, my dear.”

 

Aziraphale’s voice was filling the silence till dawn. Crowley had never felt safer than in this exact moment.

 

 

 

>   
>  Let us go then, you and I,  
>  When the evening is spread out against the sky  
>  Like a patient etherized upon a table;  
>  Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,  
>  The muttering retreats  
>  Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels  
>  And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:  
>  Streets that follow like a tedious argument  
>  Of insidious intent  
>  To lead you to an overwhelming question…  
>  Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"  
>  Let us go and make our visit.
> 
>   
>  Thomas Stearns Eliot, _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Couple of sources:
> 
> 1) You can find T.S. Eliot works on the internet, but I guess he's more popular abroad than in my country, so you shouldn't have got any troubles with finding his beautiful poems.  
> 2) "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds". These are Robert Oppenheimer's words, said after successful detonation of nuclear bomb (Project Manhattan)  
> 3) Armours! Honestly, I had no idea that there's so many beautiful armours and even if I couldn't find the exact one I had in mind while writing this, it was close enough to use: https://2static.fjcdn.com/large/pictures/0f/6f/0f6fb7_5869925.jpg  
> 4) Angel of Anger: honestly, go check this (https://www.angelarium.net/af-angel-of-anger) site, you won't regret it.
> 
> @heismysoulmate: "if you ever think that writing a fic with long sentences and descriptions of the medieval armour, and then translating it is a good idea... no, it's not. so i hope you liked it ^^"
> 
> That's all I guess. Thank you for reading, any comments and kudos will be appreciated!


End file.
